


What Doesn't Kill Me...

by TheLori24



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Backstory, Implied/Referenced Violence, Origin Story, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-28 00:38:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15036848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLori24/pseuds/TheLori24
Summary: It is a dark, winding and complicated road that led Nisha Kadam to her eventual place in Jack's employ.Backstory/origin story for Nisha, from her younger years right up until the events of the pre-sequel.





	1. After Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on some backstory stuff for Nisha. Since not a lot is known about her past or even a ton about a lot of other worlds and settings in this verse, I've had some fun and taken some liberties with fleshing out her world and life and people in it that shaped her into who we see later. Also fleshed out the relationship with her oh-so-briefly but still canonically mentioned sister a fair amount. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!

Nisha knew the story. Everyone did, how her homeworld and her town had once known better days. The big boom of progress that had come with the discovery of ore and precious materials, how the corporations all vied for a piece of it, how people flooded here, machines and mines and fortunes built up overnight. 

And then the mines and veins dried up, and there’d been no reason to stay any longer on the now stripped world. Those that could get out did. Those that couldn’t were left behind to make due however best they could. That last part had been the only part of this story Nisha had ever known. 

They’d had nice things once, her father had been a man with a chance to make something out of himself once, until he’d made a mess of it because he was an idiot. These were the things *she* liked to remind him of loudly and constantly. *She* had wanted to be the wife of a rich man, to live a good life, and now *she* was stuck here, and it was all his fault. And she was stuck with these children that she’d never wanted, he’d wanted the kids, he should do more to provide for them, she liked to remind him. More things that were all his fault, and somehow theirs, for the simple reason that they’d been born at all. 

Nisha never really thought of her mother as anyone other than *she* or *her*, written in bold, dark, underlined letters in her mind’s eye, put over this menacing shadow that was just constantly there in her life. While most of the other kids she knew liked their mothers, looked up to them…her biggest goal in life currently was to do anything she could to avoid the attention of her own. She wished she had a mom like they did, she didn’t even really need one who loved her she guessed. She’d settle for just being liked, instead of only being the brunt of drunken, slurred name calling, things thrown, things bruised. 

Lucky for her she supposed, her older sister was much more the lightening rod for her mom’s near-constant anger, even more so in the last year or so since Diya seemed to stop caring about what consequences came with whatever she did. Part of her thought her sister was nuts. Part of her wished she was bold enough for that, to do and say what she felt, to not care what happened afterwards. 

While Nisha hadn’t quite brushed her teens yet, Diya was almost an adult now, an almost-adult that would come and go as she wanted, sometimes disappearing for days at a time. Nisha couldn’t wait until she was old enough to just leave whenever she felt like it, she was jealous of her sister’s freedom, but deep down it worried her a bit too. They didn’t always get along, didn’t always like each other, seemed to be perfect at pushing each other’s buttons. But at the same time her sister was the only one who’d shown she could really be trusted. Even when they fought, called each other names, she felt safe with Diya. And she worried that one day she’d just have had enough and leave and then Nisha would be left all alone. She’d certainly threatened to do it enough in the past. 

The sound of shouting and things breaking wasn’t unusual by any means, but it was still enough to wake her up, pulling up the blankets and lying still pretending to still be asleep, just in case it was coming her way. After a moment though she was pretty sure it wasn’t, but she picked up her sister’s voice out of the shouting. She sat up straight in bed, it had been two days this time, and she wanted to catch her, before she just disappeared again. She sat still, listening for what felt like forever, until she heard the front door slam, and knew she didn’t have much time left. She jumped out of bed, pulling on a pair of jeans and sneakers over her pajamas before carefully pulling open her window, sliding out and dropping to the ground below. She circled around to the front of the house, where Diya was angrily throwing things into the truck of the rusted out, battered machine that was her car. 

“You’re not leaving again!” She called out as she came closer, trying not to sound as desperate as she felt. “You just got back!” 

“Go to bed, Nisha!” Her sister retorted, angry waver in her voice, she’d been crying. 

“No!” She shot back stubbornly. “No! I never get to see you anymore and now you’re just gonna leave again and…” She took a breath, a moment to push all those stupid feelings back down where they belonged. 

“Yeah? And why should I stay?” She stood up, voice rising. “I’m not even back five minutes and she’s just…she can’t ever just *not*…she likes everyone else around her to be as miserable as she is!” 

Nisha looked back at the house, she knew all about that far too well. “Then…take me with you!” 

Diya stood up, brushing long, dark hair back from her face. “Look, I can’t. And I’m not even really going anywhere anyway…” 

“I don’t care! I’d just rather be with you!” She countered hopefully, holding her breath. 

Diya seemed torn, uncertain for a long moment, but finally nodded her agreement. “Yeah, you know what, fine…let’s get the hell outta here.” 

The car peeled out of the gravel drive leaving the house behind them in the dust. They just drove, through town for a stop at a late-night food spot, a bag of greasy food wedged into the seat between them. They drove on through town, out through the winding country roads, out past the skeletons of what had once been the mines and extraction processing facilities, through another small town with only a few lights left on here and there. Nisha rested her arm against the open window edge, feeling the cool night air on her face as she pushed the seat back, feet kicked up on the dashboard as she watched what she could see roll past her in the grey-purple darkness. Everything a weird black-lit effect under the swath of stars and the planet’s couple of moons full in the sky tonight and she wondered idly if night on the other planets out there looked the same or not. Diya fiddled with the radio, finally finding some music through the crackles of static that filled most of the airways. They didn’t talk much, there really wasn’t much to say. Nothing they didn’t both already know, didn’t already think about and worry about. 

But finally Nisha broke the silence, still looking out the window. “You’re just gonna leave someday…aren’t you? Just go away one day and not come back again.” She’d gotten good at keeping her voice level, not giving away the depths of all the things she felt, how alone and angry and helpless and miserable that thought made her. 

Diya almost seemed surprised, reaching over to turn the radio down a little. “What makes you think that?” 

“Because it’s true. You hardly come home anymore as it is…” She trailed off. “I don’t want you to just go and not see you again and be stuck here all by myself.” 

“I know…I’m not around a lot. But it’s ‘cause I’ve been busy. Doing work and stuff.” She said after a moment, things she was obviously not saying that made her sister look at her curiously. “Look…it’s all kinda complicated right now. But listen, I promise when I go, you come too, okay?” 

Nisha didn’t look quite like she believed her. “You mean that?” 

“You really think I’m just gonna go away for all of forever and leave you there to deal with Bitchface all by yourself?” She glanced over, a little bit of a smile could be seen in the dim light. “Hey. I do mean it.” She held a hand out across the seat towards her sister. 

Nisha looked down at it, pulling a bit of a face. “C’mon, no. That’s kid stuff.” She said almost disdainfully. 

Diya’s grin grew a little. “Nope, you gotta do it, then you know it’s for reals and serious.” 

The younger girl let out a long-suffering sigh, more for dramatic effect then anything else, she always acted like it annoyed her but she kind of liked that these sorts of moments still happened, that sometimes not everything had to always feel so life or death serious. She reached out to meet the outstretched hand, linking her pinky with her sister’s. “You are such a dork sometimes.” 

Diya laughed, giving it a squeeze for a moment before letting out, hands back on the wheel. “Hey, takes one to know one, loser.” 

Nisha leaned back in the seat again, for just a few moments things felt almost normal, and she held onto that moment tightly, tucked right next to the newfound hope that Diya meant it, and this wasn’t her life forever.   
.


	2. Escape Plan

The first rays of morning sun rose up over the horizon, gleaming almost blindingly off the metal and glass buildings of the city skyline ahead of them. Nisha leaned forward to stare out the window, she’d only ever seen pictures of places like this, and even if it wasn’t the most impressive city there ever was, she still couldn’t help but gape at it a little. 

This was the furthest away from home she’d ever been, the most she’d ever seen outside of her tiny hometown, and it was still only at the start of their journey. It was still hard to believe it had only been yesterday morning that everything had changed, Diya had turned up again, found her, told her to be ready to go that night after making her solemnly promise not to tell anyone else what they had planned. She’d snuck out in the middle of the night to meet her sister and they’d set off, her sister had told her she should try and get some sleep but that was about the last thing on her mind now, considering all that was happening. She had a million questions as her own excitement and Diya’s fed off each other. Everything was about to change, about to get so much better. 

She wanted to know where they were going, what it would be like, what they’d do, what’d happen. Diya explained she’d managed to get them actual papers that would let them leave the planet, that she had friends in a major port city on another world who’d already promised her work and help getting settled in. Nisha would get to go to school there, she might even might be able to go away to university when she was older, maybe they even both could, Diya continued. They’d have futures and lives there, chances to be something other than the miserable nobodies they’d be here. It sounded amazing, and she couldn’t wait. 

Once in the city Diya found an out of the way lot to leave the car behind, they weren’t going to need it anymore after today anyway, she reasoned. They each shouldered the bag they’d brought containing everything they cared about taking with them and started off on foot towards the launch port not that far away from them. 

“This is so cool…it’s all like some kind of spy movie or something, where we’re all just sneaking around but so that we can do something cool! We should have like…cool poses or catchphrases and stuff!” Nisha grinned up at her sister, all this still not feeling real. “Should we get like disguises or new names or something?” 

Diya laughed. “I mean we don’t need to…but I could give you a whole new makeover if you wanted?” 

Nisha looked over at her sister and considered this, she’d been thinking dramatic costume changes and stuff, not so much just a makeover, at least not how she imagined her sister would see it. Her sister’s looks were important to her, she fussed over what clothes went with what other clothes, how her hair and her makeup looked. Nisha would rather have the extra hour worth of sleep in the morning, and not having to worry about how all the stuff she did might mess up her clothes or makeup. “Nah, I’m gonna pass on that…especially after that thing you did to my hair last time…” 

“You mean…curled it?” Diya asked dryly. 

The lip curled look of disgust was almost immediate as she scoffed. “Yeah, that. I looked stupid!” 

“Suit yourself!” Diya laughed again, reaching out to ruffle her sister’s hair a little, despite the fussy protesting sound she got in response. 

Diya grew a little more serious as they approached the port proper, walking like she knew what she was doing and where she was going. Nisha tried not to look everything at once, trying to play it all cool like her sister currently was, but it was hard not to stare at the tall ceilings, the changing billboards for locations she’d never even heard of, the glimpses of ships outside the window, one of which she’d soon be on herself. 

Diya approached one of the counters, confidently handing over the two thin folders of papers, one for each of them. The woman took the papers, looking over the two kids with an odd glance before unfolding the papers, glancing at them before passing them through the machine next to her. Instead of a beep and a green light however, the machine gave an error sound, a flash of red. The woman frowned at the machine, Diya’s smile was a little frozen, anxious but she tried to wait it out patiently. The woman passed the pages through the machine again with the same result, before taking them out to look at them closer. Diya started to sweat a little, Nisha could see her hands ball up at her sides. 

The woman abruptly turned to them again, pushing the papers back to Diya. “I’m sorry sweetie…I’m not going to be able to take these.” 

The color dropped out of Diya’s face a little. “No…no, I don’t know what you’re talking about. They should work…” Nisha’s own smile faded, cold feeling creeping up through her stomach as she watched the conversation. 

“Genuine papers scan…these don’t…sorry but I’m pretty sure all you’ve got there is some nice expensive scrap paper.” The woman gave the pair an apologetic look. 

“No, you don’t understand…they should be good…we need to be on our ship, it’s leaving soon…” She paused as a desperate idea came to her, fumbling in her bag, pulling out a slim stack of bills, hesitating over them for a long moment before sliding a couple of them across over with the papers. “Maybe…maybe we just…you know…let it slid?” 

The woman looked from the bills to Diya with a short little laugh. “Look honey, I think you watch way too many movies. I get it, I do. Everyone wants off this rock…but no one here is gonna risk their job, or a security breech to let a couple kids with a bunch of fake papers in. Especially not for a lousy hundred bucks.” 

Diya looked like she was going to protest but the woman cut her off. “I’m already doing you a favor by not reporting this, since you are just a couple kids…now why don’t you two just go on home. Don’t make this have to be done the difficult way, alright?” 

Diya looked like she was going to cry, she swallowed hard, scooping up the papers and cash before she turned quickly, grabbing Nisha’s arm to walk away from the counter. Nisha wanted to protest and pull away, she didn’t though as she tried to swallow down the sinking feeling in her stomach. 

“How…why didn’t they work? You said they’d work…” She trailed off as Diya quickly shushed her, glancing around at who else might be looking at them.   
Diya shook her head, keeping her voice low. “I don’t understand…he said they’d pass as real, he said they’d work! I paid him a bunch of money for these too!” 

“Who? Who are you talking about? You knew they weren’t real?” Nisha demanded, frowning at her sister. “You knew this maybe wouldn’t work?” 

“Because…you can’t get real ones! Hardly anyone can get real ones! But they were supposed to work! I…gotta figure this out now!” She was crying, now that they were outside, away from everyone else staring at them. Diya was one of those people who seemed to cry whenever she got angry, then only got angrier because she was crying. Nisha knew how she must be feeling, she half wanted to cry herself right now, instead she just rested her head against her sister’s arm, Diya reached around to hug her. “It’s okay…it’ll be okay. I’ll fix this.” She promised. 

Two days passed though without a solution in sight. They’d holed up in a seedy little motel near the port, the kind of place where Nisha tried not to think too hard about what the stains on the walls and bed must be, where the fighting and carrying on in the rooms around them reminded her too much of back home, where there wasn’t much to eat that didn’t come out of the vending machine in front of the office and where there wasn’t much else to do to pass the time with besides watch the two channels that came through on the ancient viewing screen, since she was kind of too nervous to want to go hang around outside this place. 

She knew they couldn’t stay here forever. And she didn’t even want to breath the suggestion that they just go home, afraid that at this point Diya would take her up on it. But every time she tried to press her sister for what happened next she only got increasingly short-tempered replies.   
“That stupid guy gave you bad papers! You should make him fix them and give you good ones!” Nisha demanded angrily, her own temper growing short as well. 

“I’m trying! I can’t get in touch with him…he knew this was going to happen and now he won’t talk to me!” Diya countered with an exasperated sound as she hurled her ECHO device onto the bed. 

“Then we should just go there! He can’t ignore you if you’re right there!” It was such an obvious solution to Nisha, and it was driving her crazy that her sister didn’t seem to want to do anything about this. 

“It doesn’t work like that! And I’m not taking you there, it’s not safe!” Diya flopped down on the bed next, looking defeated. 

Nisha had always seen her sister as strong and brave, who did want she wanted and stood up to everyone. That she’d always be safe with her, that nothing bad could happen to her as long as Diya was around. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure anymore. 

Around lunchtime on the second day there came a knock at the door. Diya peeked out the window then suddenly swore. “Fuck…fuck, it’s cops!” 

Nisha looked up sharply, looking all around for some way to escape but there was nothing in the dank little room except for out the front door. The knock came again, along with the insistence to open up the door, Nisha violently shaking her head not to, even as Diya bit her lip, obviously torn, but knowing she had no other choice she finally opened the door. Nisha tried to tuck herself out of sight, wondering just how much trouble they’d get into, if this was because of the fake papers Diya had. 

“Diya Kadam?” The man at the door asked, Diya just offered a mute nod. The man mumbled something into his earpiece before looking back to her. “We’d gotten a report that you might be here…is your sister with you?” Another mute nod, Nisha felt a surge of hurt and fury that her sister sold her out so easily, not even speaking just quietly doing as she was told, Diya who she’d long looked up to as fearless and bold…fearless and bold no longer. 

“Your father is looking for you.” The man was continuing. “He doesn’t want to turn this into a big deal, it doesn’t have to be if you both just come quietly, let us take you home. He just wants you both home safely.” 

Diya finally answered something quietly that Nisha didn’t quite catch, she felt instantly sick at the thought of being taken back there and had to fight back the sudden urge to throw up. 

“Nisha…it’s okay, you can come out.” Diya called back quietly, she knew she’d been caught out and couldn’t keep hiding. She stepped out from where she was, but refused to come closer. “No! I’m not going, I’m not going back, you can’t make me!” She found herself shouting. “You said we didn’t have to! You promised!” 

Diya crossed to her, going on her knees in front of her sister, reaching out to hug her but Nisha pushed her away, wouldn’t let her close. “No! I’m not doing it!” Diya shook her head. “I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…it’ll be okay.” She tried to reassure her, but it did little good. This had all been so bad, had gone so wrong and there was nothing she could do about it. 

The trip home was painfully, awkwardly quiet. The actual return to the house had been loud and angry and painful in completely different ways, their father fussed and cried about how he’d been so worried about them, *she* shouted at them for being ungrateful brats who were damn lucky they hadn’t been killed by some unsavory sort, and that if they had it would have served them right, had shouted at Diya that if she hated it here so much she should just go and not bother to come back, it was one of the few times that she heard her father raise his voice at all in defense of not kicking his oldest out of the house but had quickly been shouted down. Diya said she didn’t want to be here anyway, why did they all think she’d tried to leave in the first place. Nisha tried to just disappear and hide in her room until it was all over. Everything was going to be so much worse now, she could already feel it. Finally it grew quiet, followed a short bit later by a gentle knock on her door. Nisha didn’t answer, a moment later Diya stepped in. 

“I’m…gonna have to go for a while, I guess…but…I’ll see you again when I can?” She offered quietly. 

“Yeah, whatever.” Nisha didn’t even look up at her, more mumbling to herself. 

“Look…I’m sorry…that everything went so bad. I didn’t mean for any of that…I’m sorry…I am…” 

“Maybe you didn’t mean it…but you still let it all happen.” Nisha finally glanced her way, lifting her head up from where she’d had it tucked down into her knees. 

“Nisha…that’s not fair. I didn’t do it on purpose and you know that.” Diya sounded every bit as exhausted as she looked. 

“But…you just let that guy rip you off and didn’t do nothing…and you let those cops tell you what to do and didn’t do nothing…I…I used to think you didn’t let anyone do anything to you…but…all you did was what everyone else told you.” Her disappointment was clear in her voice as she looked away again. 

Diya came closer, tried to hug her, but was shrugged off angrily. She was hurt and angry and exhausted, trapped right back where she started…and now it was all going to be worse for having tried what they’d tried. “You’re supposed to go…you should just go!” She finally said petulantly, hugging her knees tightly again. 

All Diya could do was nod, pulling Nisha into a hug even as she protested, kissing the top of her head. “I’ll come back. I can still fix this.” Diya promised quietly. For just a moment Nisha almost melted, she almost hugged her back. Almost called for her to come back, to not leave…as upset as she was she didn’t want to see her go. But she didn’t do any of that, turning her face to the wall as Diya left. 

And as the days turned slowly to weeks turned slowly to months and Diya didn’t come back again she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d only done something or said something if it would have made a difference…or if her sister would have still just left like that if she’d known that Nisha didn’t really hate her after all. She guessed she’d never know, and now it was only her alone against everyone else.


	3. Lucky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a warning, this chapter deals with the story of the dog - just in case that's something anyone wants to nope out of reading about.

“Nisha, I brought you something!” 

At her father’s voice she didn’t even look up from where she was sprawled across the armchair, nose buried in a magazine. She knew what he was doing, knew this routine all too well by now, and she didn’t need or want another one of his half-assed apology gestures. He’d take her aside and apologize for *her*, give her gifts, offer a bunch of cheap, stupid words that did nothing and changed nothing and she just didn’t care anymore. 

He was persistent though, crossing the room to her and dropping something small and wiggling onto her stomach. “Look, isn’t she cute? I thought you’d like her.” 

She shifted the magazine to the side to look at what he’d put in her lap, a small black and white dog that lunged forward immediately to try to lick her face, she held it off with one hand to look up at him with an unamused look. He was smiling brightly at her, she guessed waiting for some sort of tender moment or gushy thank you or something. “What am I supposed to do with this…scruffy dog?” She asked, looking back at the dog again. She was small and had probably seen better days. One of her ears looked like it had been half chewed off, one paw lifted a little upwards like it had been hurt before…a little battered, a little worn and broken, just like everything around here. A little bit like Nisha herself too. But despite it all she still wagged her tail, dancing around happily wanting nothing more than to just be loved and petted. And something inside Nisha stirred. Just a little. 

Her father’s expression faltered a little. “I just…I know things have been rough around here lately…with Diya…and with your mother. So I just wanted…” 

She stood up quickly, scooping the dog up under one arm without letting him finish the thought. She didn’t want to finish those thoughts, she didn’t want to talk about the rest of her stupid, broken family. “Yeah, we’re not talking about that.” 

She brushed past him, headed back to her bedroom. She set the dog down on the floor, and sat on the bed, watching her run around, sniffing at everything curiously. “So what am I supposed to do with you?” The dog circled back to her feet, bouncing up to rest her paws on Nisha’s knees, tail still wagging hopefully. She lifted the dog up onto the bed with her, flopping on her back and now that there was no one there to watch, letting the pup climb on her, licking at her face and hands while doing exuberant full body wiggles. “Ack, stoppit, you have dog breath!” She giggled but not really trying to stop it either. “I guess you’re lucky you’re kinda cute.” 

The name stuck, and the little dog was Lucky from that day forward, it didn’t matter what was happening, what time of day it was, how bad a day she’d had, Lucky was always happy to see her. “I’m not taking care of that thing,” *She* had scolded, “This is all on you and your idiot father who seems to think feeding another mouth is no big deal.” She knew that voice, that tone, and from that day forward Lucky went everywhere she did. She didn’t trust that nothing would happen to Lucky if she wasn’t around to keep an eye on her, to protect her. 

With her tiny legs and how she limped a little, it was easier to just carry Lucky around with her, and the dog soon learned to settle across Nisha’s shoulders and ride along from her higher perch, going with her to school, as she did her chores, or just all the excuses she came up with to delay going home as long as she could, whenever she could. Nisha had someone to eat lunch with now at school when no one else did, to talk to now that she no longer had her sister around, to curl up with at night and feel less alone. It was nice to not feel so alone, to have something to give a crap about that wasn’t herself, and to know she was cared about in return, even if the only thing that cared about her was a scruffy little dog. 

But it couldn’t last. Nothing ever did for her, everything she ever gave a crap about sooner or later got taken away from her, like some kind of giant, sick, cosmic joke all directed at her. 

She sat on the edge of the porch and tossed the stick out away from her, Lucky gave chase but this time didn’t come back. Instead there was an angry hissing sound and a painful high pitched yelp that made her blood run cold. She grabbed up an empty bottle left behind on the porch and ran forward, quickly picking out the hissing, slavering creature that was all sinewy bits and long, uncomfortable limbs. She hurled the bottle with all the force she could muster, backed up with the surge of fury at anything that’d dare mess with her dog. She’d been practicing her aim, and caught the creature squarely in the head, it hissed again, oozing blood and turning to skitter away chased off by what it saw as a larger predator. 

She turned quickly to Lucky, breath catching in her throat as she immediately recognized the signs of the bite already infecting the dog. “No….no, please no, nonono…” The word becoming a near breathless run-on, until she realized Lucky wasn’t growling or snapping, wasn’t trying to bite or attack her. She dropped to her knees as the little dog limped painfully towards her, whining a little in a way that hurt to listen to. She didn’t know how Lucky had managed to escape getting sick…maybe…just maybe she was living up to her name. She carefully gathered Lucky up to take her inside, to patch her up. 

As soon as *she* found out what happened she wouldn’t let it go, not offering any help but just endlessly scolding her for how careless she was, how if she weren’t such a reckless, sloppy, useless girl this would never have happened, that this was why she didn’t deserve nice things, she only broke them. She tried not to listen, tried not to care, tried to only be happy that Lucky seemed okay. Nisha was distracted, she should have caught the glass, she usually did. But she missed and the next was a blur of snarling teeth and terrible pain in her neck all the while *she* laughed. She just stood and watched and fucking laughed. 

Her father cleaned up her later, murmuring apologizes and sympathetic words. She sat stiff and rigid as he worked, not wanting his help, not wanting to hear him offer just more stupid words, all the while he still just let *her* get away with doing and saying whatever she wanted, no matter what happened. “I’ll get you another dog.” He promised. “It’ll be okay, you’ll see.” He promised. He promised a lot of things, none of them ever happened. 

He tried to hug her, but she held herself even stiffer, jerking away from him. He didn’t get it, he didn’t understand. Lucky had been everything, and he only sat there and offered to just replace her like she’d never even mattered. “I don’t want another dog! I hate dogs! I hate her! I hate you!” She burst out furiously. She untangled herself from him, shoving him away before turning to run outside, her mother’s voice following her. “You’d better do something about that thing, I don’t want it biting the neighbors!” 

She stood out in the night air on the porch, pulling in breaths, trying to stop shaking, trying not to think about what she knew had to happen next. She hadn’t gotten lucky. She hadn’t been spared. Everything hated her…and she hated it all right back. What was the point in ever caring about or loving anything else, only to have it ripped away like this? That hurt and rage and frustration sank into her, clinging close. She wasn’t crying, she swore to herself, but her throat hurt in a way that had nothing to do with the bite and her cheeks were damp even as she wiped at them furiously. She walked slowly to the shed around the back of the house, hands wrapping around the handle of the shovel. Out in the darkness she could hear the frenzied growls and snarls coming from somewhere nearby. She knew what she needed to do. It had to be done…and it had to be her. 

She didn’t come back in that night, stretched out in the grass next to the fresh little mount of earth and staring blankly up at the stars. She’d been bitten, a part of her almost wished she’d have been the one infected instead. Then she’d have reasons, excuses, to lash out, to fight, to be angry. And then maybe when it was all over someone would bash out her brains with a shovel too. And as much as she was a fighter, a survivor…right now…it didn’t seem like the worst thing that could happen to her.


End file.
